Diamond Etching

As one of the most chemically inert materials in the universe, Diamond is notoriously difficult to etch using conventional semiconductor techniques. At an early stage we developed a process that yielded very clean, high quality etch profiles using a modified reactive ion etch process and produced some of the cleanest diamond etch profiles that have ever been seen.

However to create the field emission structures that underpin Evince's new class of diamond devices we have developed an alternative way to etch diamond that does not require the generation of an electrical plasma.

Instead Evince has developed a proprietary method of etching diamond that uses a metal catalyst to selectively etch the material. By lithographically patterning this catalyst the etch area can be precisely defined leading to the creation of structures such as those to left of the section.

Our catalytic etch process also works with nanocrystalline diamond as can be seen below:

The catalyst etch method is therefore suitable for MEM's and high frequency device applications using diamond amongst others. Evince would be welcome enquiries for collaboration in these areas.